Just a Dream
by JBlove
Summary: Riley has been hunting with Sam and Dean since they first stumbled into her small town on a case. When Dean's year is up and Sam and Riley are forced to say goodbye, how will they handle it? When Riley is given a second chance with Dean, will she take it?
1. Chapter 1

_Now I'll never know_

_I can't even breathe_

_This can't be happening to me_

_This is just a dream._

Riley had been certain that their plan would work. It had to. She wouldn't let herself think about what would happen if it didn't. They'd sneak in, kill Lilith, and free Dean from his deal with the crossroads demon. He wouldn't have to go to hell and they could continue hunting.

But as Riley burst into the living room and saw Sam crying over Dean's bloody, lifeless body, she realized with horror that their plan had failed miserably. Lilith was certainly still alive somewhere and the hellhounds had come for Dean. He was gone. And there was nothing they could do to bring him back.

She fell to her knees, trying to look away from Dean's body but finding it impossible. His blood-soaked clothes were ripped to shreds, exposing his torn flesh. A few tears streaked down her cheeks as Bobby ran in and stopped as he took in the sight before him.

"No," he breathed, punching the wall in frustration before burying his face in his hands.

"Dean," Sam sobbed, barely holding himself together. But Dean's hazel eyes stared unmoving into space.

Riley gasped for air, feeling as if the hellhounds had ripped her open too. A chasm had opened in her chest, pulling her heart into its cold black depths. She struggled to her feet and stumbled outside, no longer able to endure the confinement of the house.

She reached the Impala and slid down to the ground, leaning against it. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. Looking back, they'd been naïve to think they could break Dean from his deal, but they'd tried anyway. It almost hurt worse knowing they had tried and failed. This time there was no coming back from the dead. Dean had finally gone to hell, and there was no way the demons would ever let him go.

Riley looked up as Bobby came out of the house. He walked to his car and searched the trunk until he pulled out a large tarp. He slammed the trunk shut and went back in the house, not saying a word or even glancing in Riley's direction. Riley gulped, remembering that as a hunter, Dean would most likely receive the proper burial—being salted and burned.

When Sam and Bobby came out of the house carrying Dean's body wrapped in the tarp, Riley had to look away. After they packed Dean's body into the Impala's trunk, Bobby got in his car and sped off while Sam walked over to Riley. As she stood up, Sam reached out and hugged her tightly. Surprised but pleased, Riley hugged back, another couple tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Please don't leave me," she whispered, knowing that without Dean, Sam would probably shun everyone from his life and go off on his own. And without Sam, Riley would have nothing left to do except hunt on her own or go back to her old life, neither of which she particularly wanted to do. Maybe she could go live with Bobby.

"I won't," he promised, squeezing her tightly before letting go. "Ready?" he asked, nodding toward the Impala as he walked around to the driver's side door.

"No," she replied, getting in the passenger side.

Sam started the car and drove away. The green, perfectly manicured lawns of large houses with four car garages turned into the dried brown grass of small, run-down shacks, which turned into an endless and uninterrupted landscape as they drove farther away from town. Riley was too numb to think or cry and had enough trouble concentrating on just breathing. Sam was quiet too, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white.

About ten miles from the edge of town, Sam pulled the Impala over to the side of the road. On one side was a huge field with long brown grass and on the other was thin woods. "Let's check this place out," he said, turning the car off and getting out.

Riley got out and looked around as she followed Sam into the woods. "Where's Bobby?"

"Going to the hardware store for wood," Sam replied.

"You don't need wood to…cremate him," Riley reminded him, her breath hitching in her throat at the word _cremate_.

"That's because we're not," Sam informed her, continuing deeper into the woods.

"Why?" Riley demanded warily, stopping.

"Because…because he needs a body when I bring him back," Sam admitted.

"No, Sam! You can't keep doing this!" Riley yelled, horrified that Sam would try to make a deal after all that had happened since Dean made his.

"He's my brother!" Sam yelled back, stopping and turning to face her. "I can't just let him die!"

"Yeah, that's what Dean said when he brought you back! And you know how that made you feel to know that he was dying for you! Your dad gave up his life to bring Dean back, and we both saw how much it tore him up inside! How much worse do you think it'd be for him, knowing you did it too? This cycle is just going to keep going if you don't stop it! Dean wouldn't want you to do this, Sam. He died for you. Just let him." She stopped as a sob wormed its way up her throat.

"Don't you want him back? So you can tell him you love him this time?" Sam asked, knowing that his words had hurt her more than if he had punched her in the gut.

She stiffened and stared at him as tears began rolling down her cheeks. "Of course I want him back, but not if you're going to die for it. I know I should've told him, but I felt like if I did, then I'd be accepting the fact that we couldn't save him." She paused and laughed bitterly. "Look how well that ended."

"I'm sorry, Riley," Sam said quietly. "I didn't mean it. I just wish you could've told him too. You really meant a lot to him." After a pause, he turned around and continued walking. "But we're still burying him."

Riley sighed, knowing she wouldn't be able to talk sense into him. Besides, she figured, the demons wouldn't trade Dean's life for Sam's soul. They had what they wanted and weren't likely to let it go.

She continued following Sam as they walked for another few minutes and emerged into a small clearing. They exchanged a glance, silently deciding that this was a good spot. Half an hour later, Bobby arrived with pine boards, a hammer, a saw, and nails. As he constructed the coffin, Sam and Riley shoveled out a six foot hole. None of them said a word.

When the hole and coffin were finished, Sam and Bobby went back to the Impala to get Dean's body while Riley used two pieces of leftover boards and nailed them together into a cross. She sighed deeply and looked around, trying to remember exactly what the place looked like in case she ever found herself back in the area. She fashioned another cross, which she planned to put into the ground on the side of the road as a marker. Bobby and Sam returned and laid his body in the coffin, removing the tarp.

Regret flooded through Riley. She'd give anything to be able to tell Dean how she really felt, but now she was left with a hole in her heart, wondering what could have been. Sam's words rang through her head—_you really meant a lot to him_. The chasm in her chest opened wider, threatening to swallow her whole. That was only the beginning of her pain.

Sam removed Dean's amulet necklace that Sam had given him as a Christmas present when they were younger and put it around his own neck. Then he gingerly removed Dean's silver ring and held it out to Riley. "Here," he said quietly, dropping it in her palm.

"Are you sure?" she questioned.

"Yeah," he nodded. "He would've wanted you to have something."

She closed her fingers around it and held it tightly before slipping it on her index finger. She made a mental note to get a chain so she could wear it as a necklace. Then Bobby and Sam put the lid on the coffin and began nailing it down. Riley sank to her knees as tears steadily began to fall. Dean was dead, and it was finally starting to sink in. She scrambled to think of the last thing she said to him, the last thing he said to her, the last time they saw each other, but her mind was blank. The last few hours were a blur. She was sore and exhausted, but nothing compared to the pain raging in her heart, or what was left of it. Dean had taken most of it with him to the grave, and she hadn't even had the guts to tell him. Sam and Dean had been the only two stable things in her life over the past five years, and having to function without one of them seemed impossible.

Sam and Bobby lowered the coffin into the hole and slowly began covering it up, occasionally stopping to wipe sweat and tears away. Riley got up and hammered one of the crosses she'd made into the ground at one end of the grave. She stood motionless and watched as they finished filling the grave. They stood in silence for a few minutes, trying to come to terms with the fact that they'd just lost one of the most important people in their lives.

Bobby was the first to leave. He picked up the things he had brought and slowly walked away. Riley stayed a few minutes longer, resisting the urge to run deeper in the woods until she couldn't run anymore and crawl in a hole. She walked over to Sam, who was on his knees, and squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. She turned back the way they'd come and began walking. This couldn't be happening, she told herself. But it was.

Halfway back to the Impala, Riley finally broke down. With her arm, she steadied herself against a tree as a fresh wave of tears fiercer than she'd ever felt pushed its way to the surface. She began sobbing, unable to stop herself even if she wanted to. She cried for Bobby, who had just lost the man who was practically his son. She cried for herself, who had just lost the man she loved and regretted not telling him. She cried for Sam, who had just lost the only family he had left, his big brother, his guardian angel. She cried for Dean, who had sacrificed himself for his little brother and was in hell, suffering the unimaginable.

What felt like hours later, Riley felt Sam's hands on her shoulders, gently guiding her back to the car. She stumbled numbly along, the tears blurring her vision too much for her to see. Bobby was leaning against the hood of his car, waiting for them. Riley approached him and hugged him tightly, having a feeling that she would not see him very often anymore.

"Keep in touch," he requested hoarsely. Riley nodded in response, not trusting her voice. Sam also hugged him tightly before Bobby climbed into his car and drove off.

Riley glanced at Sam, whose expression mirrored exactly how she felt inside. Before climbing into the Impala's passenger seat, she took one last longing look back through the woods at the life that seemed so far away. She got in and slammed the door shut, her mind still numb, but the pain in her heart very much alive.

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><p><strong>I haven't been on this site in so long, but I've had an idea for a Supernatural fic since I got hooked on the show last year. So here it is! I hope you liked the first chapter! :)<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

The next four months were harder than Riley could have ever imagined. She endured many sleepless nights, and on those nights when she managed to cry herself to sleep, she was plagued by nightmares of Dean in hell and of the rest of her life being an endless road of pain and misery. In her waking moments, she felt lifeless and unfeeling. Riley did, however, keep her promise to Bobby by calling him a couple times a week and updating him about what she and Sam had been doing. Much to Riley's dismay, Ruby reappeared in a new vessel, though she kept out of Riley's way and was with Sam whenever Riley was gone. Sam and Riley remained close, being that they were all each other had, but their relationship was a little more distant than it had been before. Sam seemed to confide more in Ruby than in Riley, which would normally bother Riley, but lately she didn't care about anything.

One day, Sam and Riley ended up tracking a bunch of demons to a town near where they had buried Dean. Gathering up her courage, Riley finally grabbed the keys to the Impala and called to Sam, "I'm going out."

She got in the Impala and turned the key in the ignition. As she drove closer to the spot, her speed increased and her grip on the steering wheel tightened. Going back and reliving those memories probably wouldn't help her get past it, but she didn't care. Sighing with relief when she finally spotted the cross at the side of the road, she pulled the car over and jumped out. Riley began walking through the woods, but as she neared the spot, she hit a layer of fallen trees. Her heartbeat sped up as a feeling in her gut told her that something was wrong. She scrambled over them, immune to the pain from the scrapes she received. As she reached the center of the circle and recognized the cross she'd hammered into the ground, she gasped. A perfect ring of trees had been knocked down around the gravesite. She tentatively approached the cross, her senses acutely aware of any noise. Her hand instinctively reached for her pistol, and she drew it out. She stood there for a few minutes, taking in the scene around her, but didn't hear any noise except the wind in the trees.

She slowly returned her pistol to the inside of her jacket and knelt down, her mind whirling. _What is going on? _she wondered. Some torn-up grass right in front of the cross caught her eye. Riley pulled a chunk of the uprooted grass back, revealing the freshly turned-over dirt underneath. This happened recently, she figured. A cold horror seeped into her as a horrifying thought formed in her mind. What if Dean's body was gone? Why else would the ground be dug-up here?

To confirm her fears (or ease her mind, although at that point that wasn't likely to happen), Riley ran back to the Impala, opened the trunk, and found a shovel inside. She ran back to the spot and began digging. What if it wasn't there? What would she do? The demons had Dean's soul; why did they need his body too? Riley's anger fueled her determination to figure out what was going on. Then she began to wonder if she was overreacting. What if his body was there? That thought almost stopped her from continuing. The last thing she could handle was digging Dean's body up. But this was too weird to leave any base uncovered. When the shovel made a _thunk_ sound as it hit the pine boards, Riley gulped. She cleared the dirt away and gasped when she saw that the boards were broken, revealing the inside of the coffin. It was empty.

Riley clutched at the shovel, trying to stay upright as her mind raced and her heartbeat sped up again. _He's gone. He's gone._ That thought kept repeating in her mind even as she tried to calm herself down. She looked around and saw no sign of where his body had been dragged. Riley bolted, running as fast as she could back to the Impala. She was too confused to even cry. After starting the car and making a U-turn back toward the hotel, she called Bobby. Maybe he could make sense of what was going on.

He answered after a couple rings. "Riley?"

"Bobby!" she cried, surprised to hear a sob come out of her throat.

"What's wrong?" he asked immediately. "Are you okay? Is Sam okay?"

"We're fine," she replied, managing to keep her voice under control. "It's just…Sam and I are near where we buried Dean, so I went to check it out. But…it's like a freaking bomb went off. There's a perfect ring of trees around his grave that have been completely leveled. And the grass…" she trailed off, trying to catch her breath. She was hysterical and felt lightheaded. Without realizing what she was doing, she was pulling into the dirt lot of a broken down, deserted gas station and parking the Impala.

"What about the grass? Riley, what's going on?" Bobby asked, worry evident in his voice.

"It's gone," she moaned in distress, leaning her head against the steering wheel and breathing in the scent of Dean's cologne that still faintly lingered in his beloved car. A tear dripped on her jeans, coloring the fabric darker blue.

"The grass?" he asked.

"No, Dean's body," she replied shakily, stepping out of the car and aimlessly walking toward the gas station.

"It's _what_?" he asked incredulously. "How do you know?"

"I d-dug it up because the grass and dirt was all torn up. I just wanted to see if it was still there, but it's not," she choked out, drawing in a ragged breath as she entered the building. It had clearly not been used in a while, but it was still stocked with snacks and magazines.

"How'd you and Sam even end up back there?" Bobby asked.

"We were tracking some demons and they ended up here. You think that could have something to do with it?" she asked.

"Riley?" she heard someone ask in disbelief. She turned in the direction of the voice, startled.

Before she could react, Dean stepped out from behind a rack at the end of the aisle to her right. He was covered in dirt and sweat, but his body was intact. No blood, no torn flesh, all his limbs fully attached. He looked nothing like he did when they'd buried him; this Dean had definitely not been attacked by hellhounds.

"Oh my God!" Riley shrieked, nearly dropping the phone. She quickly drew out her pistol and backed up until she was leaning up against the check-out counter.

"What's wrong?" Bobby asked, concern lacing his voice.

"Whoa, Riley, it's me," Dean said quietly, holding his hands out in front of him to calm her.

All Riley could do was stare. She knew that there was no way this could be Dean, but she still felt the urge to run and hug him. He kept his eyes trained on the pistol in her hand, but she wouldn't shoot him. She couldn't. Just in case.

"Riley!" Bobby yelled, startling her back to reality.

"Oh! Nothing. I'm fine, Bobby. Can I call you back later?" she asked, her eyes not leaving Dean's. She felt an ache pulling at her heart, but her grip on the gun didn't loosen.

"It sure doesn't sound like nothing," Bobby commented.

"Uh…yeah, it's something, but I can handle it. I'll call you back later, okay?"

"Yeah. I'll drive through the night, and I should be there by tomorrow morning so we can figure all this out," Bobby informed her.

"Okay, see you then."

"Bye, Riley. Tell Sam I said hi. And be careful."

"I will, Bobby."

Riley hung up and turned her full attention to Dean as she pocketed her cell phone. "What are you?" she asked.

"It's me, Riley, I swear. I woke up six feet under. I don't know what happened."

"Bull," she hissed, cocking her gun. She never would have shot him just in case it was really him but she needed to keep her guard up.

"Whoa, whoa, don't shoot! I'll prove it! Give me the silver knife," Dean pleaded.

"How do you know I even have one on me?" Riley asked.

"Because I know you, and you always have some sort of weapon on you all the time. Riley, please. Let me show you."

"So you can kill me? I ain't that stupid. Like hell I'm giving you my knife." It was getting harder to not give in to the hope that was growing inside her. He knew she always kept a weapon on her. And the way he kept saying her name was driving her crazy. She gestured with her pistol for him to go outside.

Once outside, she put her pistol back in her jacket and instead pulled out the silver blade. A nervous expression crossed Dean's face. She approached slowly, holding her hand out for his arm. He reluctantly held it out, and she could feel how tense he was when she took hold of it. If she tried to stab him, he was ready for her. She made a small cut on his forearm, and his only reaction was a brief wince. No burning or screaming.

A satisfied smile tugged at his lips and his green eyes clearly conveyed the words "I told you so." Unimpressed, she brushed past him and walked toward the Impala, trying to clear the fog from her brain. It was so easy for him to get to her and soon she wouldn't be able to hide it from him.

"That just means you're not a shapeshifter or a ghoul or a dozen other things. But demons won't react to silver," she said as she opened the trunk and propped up the false bottom with a shotgun. She pulled out a jug of salt dissolved in holy water. "But they will react to a little Jesus juice."

As she straightened up, she noticed Dean's eyes fall to her neck and his ring that she had hanging on a chain. Her hand flew to the ring without thinking, and her fingers wrapped around the comforting coolness of the metal. His expression softened and the look in his eyes suggested he realized how much pain she had gone through in the past four months.

Riley let go of the ring and twisted the cap off the jug. She tossed some holy water on Dean, but there was once again no reaction. All he did was wipe the water off his face and smile sarcastically at her. "Thanks."

"I still don't believe you. Things like this don't just happen. People don't just walk out of hell. Even if you could get out, there's no way your body would ever look like that again. It was…" Riley began, but trailed off, not wanting either of them to start reliving that night again. She didn't know what to believe. She had never heard of anyone coming back from hell, but whatever this was was exactly like Dean. The way he moved, the way he talked, the way he interacted with her, everything was the Dean she knew. She would know, having spent every day of the last three or four years with him. But she had to stay focused and not let her feelings get in the way. This couldn't possibly be him.

He nodded slowly, a faraway look on his face. "If what it felt like was any indication as to how it looked, then I must've looked pretty bad."

"Yeah," she said quietly, looking at the ground.

"Hey," he said in a comforting tone, stepping closer to her and putting his arm out to pull her closer to him.

Riley snapped out of her trance as warning bells went off in her head. She was close to convinced that this was in fact Dean, but she still wasn't completely sure, mostly because of the impossibility of it all. Monsters knew that Dean and Sam were her weak spots and the easiest way to kill her was to use them. Just to be safe, she backed away and held her hands up.

"Don't. I don't…this doesn't make sense. Prove that you're really Dean. Tell me something only I would know."

"Uhh, your name is Riley Stark, your parents and your brother were killed by demons when you were young, your aunt raised you and taught you about hunting. Sam and I met you when we found a case in your town and you agreed to hunt with us," Dean blurted, rambling off anything he could come up with.

Riley looked unconvinced, though the scales tipped a little more in his favor. "That's general knowledge. I'm talking specifics here. Only something you and I know."

"I don't know!" Dean exclaimed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Um, one time while Sam was researching a case, we went out to the bar and you got so wasted and you could hardly walk and I had to practically carry you to the car and you blurted out that you loved me or something and then you just passed out. You woke up the next morning and Sam told you what had happened because you couldn't remember anything." He stopped and looked up at her. "Good enough for you?"

Riley stood there, completely shocked. That was a night she wished she could go back to and do over again.

She and Dean had gone out to the bar, and they'd gotten a table and ordered a couple beers. It had been nice to relax and unwind with just Dean for once. But as usual, Dean got up and started hitting on some girl on the other side of the room, leaving Riley hurt and alone. She was tired of pretending that she didn't feel anything, that it didn't hurt when he hit on every girl in the damn bar except her. So Riley had gotten as drunk as she'd ever gotten, trying to drink away the pain. At first she just tried to take the edge off, but she was soon ordering beer after beer. The numbness felt so good, and she couldn't find the self-control to stop. That was all she remembered.

The next morning she'd woken up in one of the beds in their hotel room with a splitting headache. She took a shower and some aspirin. Sam and Dean were back by the time she got out of the bathroom. Riley asked what had happened the night before, panicking slightly as Dean avoided meeting her eyes. He didn't reply or even look in her direction; he just walked out as she looked expectantly at him. She turned to Sam, who explained what had happened. She was dumbstruck and mentally kicked herself over and over for not being able to stop herself and thinking that alcohol would be capable of completely stopping the pain. Sam had comforted her, telling her that it would be okay; Dean would get over it and they'd move on and put this behind them.

When Dean returned, Sam left them alone to work it out. It took a hell of a lot of convincing (since drunk people tended to be the most truthful), and even then she wasn't sure if Dean believed her, but Riley lied through her teeth and tried to persuade Dean that she had been too wasted and she had had no idea what she was saying and she didn't mean what she'd said. Things were still a little awkward between them for the next week, but they eventually went back to normal. Neither of them brought it up again.

Since then, Riley had wondered several times what would have happened between them if she hadn't tried to convince him so hard, if she'd just let him believe what he wanted. She went from wanting to shoot herself for getting so drunk and saying she loved him to wanting to shoot herself for convincing him that she hadn't meant what she'd said. Would he have tried to go after her? _I'm not good enough for Dean Winchester, _she'd thought bitterly to herself. _I'm not easy enough, and I sure as hell am not as beautiful as the women he goes after. I'm just like his little sister, nothing more._

"Riley!" Dean yelled, snapping his fingers in front of her face.

As she was brought back to reality she realized that this was the real, honest-to-God Dean standing in front of her. She didn't know or care how at that moment in time; all she cared about was that he was back, he was here.

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><p><strong>Sorry for this being so late; I suddenly had the inspiration to write more, and this is what came out. Hope you like! :)<strong>


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